t
is not known what secret gift made Pedro Maffia find in the core of
the bandoneon sounds that nobody had discovered before. Oscar
Zucchi, who will be concerned of Maffia in the third volume of his
gigantic history of bandoneon in tango, which is being launched by the
Argentine publishing company Corregidor, explains that until the second
decade of the twentieth century bandoneon players had a tendency to
imitate the flutegradually displaced in the early quartets- and
the barrell organ with their instrument. After undergoing in his chilhood
the frequent beating with a chain made by his brutal father, who forced
him to beg money after each tango he played, Maffia was who delivered
the bandoneon needed by this popular genre so to leave behind the playful
Guardia Vieja (old stream) and turn serious, concentrated, fairly dreaming
and frequently sad.

Zucchi tells us that Maffia fled from home when he
was a teenager to seek shelter at the Negra María´s place,
mother of several musicians with different fathers and connected with
scoundrels from the south of the huge province of Buenos Aires. Towards
those southern brothels and cheap coffee shops, bordering on the Patagonia,
this woman sent Tanito (this nickname alluded to Maffia´s
Italian origin), who had not left the costilludo (ribs)
(one of the popular names for bandoneon) in his escape. It was in Punta
Arenas, one of those remote towns, where Carlos
Gardel and José Razzano, who
by then formed a folk duo, discovered that precocious fugitive that
played as no one did, and the pianist Roberto
Firpo, also on tour of those wide distances, brought him to the
city of Buenos Aires. But Maffia disliked the straight beat of that
orchestra, because he was already inventing the displaced accents, the
phrasing, the rubato.

When joining in 1922 the Juan
Carlos Cobián sextet (the famous composer of tangos like
"Los mareados"
and "Nostalgias"),
he met with the violinist Julio De Caro (with
whom he had already formed a quartet), Maffia started to take part in
the sprouting of the revolutionary Decaro school (escuela decareana),
whose mentors were at least four: the brothers Julio and Francisco
De Caro (pianist), Pedro Laurenz and Maffia (the most well known
of all bandoneon duos). In his History of the Tango Typical Orchestra
(A. Peña Lillo Publisher), Luis
Adolfo Sierra stands out that in the early stage of De Caro´s
sextet (born nearing the late 1923, modelled on the one led by Cobián)
«it was clearly perceived the temperamental influence exercised
by Pedro Maffia´s bandoneon, of unhurried manner, with an inclination
towards embellished nuances and effects of pianissimo dynamics, besides
a strong tendency to legato sounds...»

Sierra, with his great authority, regards Maffia as
"the great stylist", and points out even «a physical attitude
in the handling of the instrument». As soon as he opened his jaula
(cage)(as also the bandoneon was known), «getting rid of the spectacular
creases of the bellows in fan-like manner...». Because Maffia
Zucchi says- did not have need of more air. In 1926 he assembled
his own sextet, with a dark sound, muffled, which became even mellower
when Nerón Ferrazzano´s cello was later added. The pianist
Julio Medovoy, born in 1918, retained forever, as a chilhood memory,
the vision of those musicians, of rigid postures, dressed in black,
solemn. Maffia was almost still, he did not bend on his instrument,
he did not curve it upon his knee. His ways were gentle, motionless.
His gesture was neither inspired nor torn. He saluted with a slight
bow of his head.

Pedro Maffia and his orchestra

He was one of the first to play bandoneon a cappella,
after Juan Magglio "Pacho", Vicente
Greco and the Tano
Genaro, and who inaugurated the bandoneon duos with different voices
and tunings, in historical pairs like those he formed with Luis
Petrucelli, Laurenz, Alfredo
De Franco and Gabriel
Clausi. His variations were famous, like the one Aníbal
Troilo played in "La maleva". In 1935 he formed, with
other outstanding figures, the group Los Cinco Ases Pebeco, and the
following year he was member of an anthological quintet, named Los Virtuosos,
whose players were chosen in a readers´ poll organized by the Sintonía
magazine. The era of the big orchestras, with ten or more instrumentalists,
which began in the mid- 30s, was not favorable for him. The Uruguayan
bandoneonist and genial arranger Héctor
María Artola reasonably explained: for him, Maffia´s
was a chamber bandoneon, whose velvet sound was lost in big line-ups
and in ample rooms.

Aníbal Troilo dedicated
to him "A Pedro Maffia". For decades he was bandoneon teacher
and he wrote an important method to learn it. In 1933 he was starred
in "Tango", the first Argentine feature film with soundtrack, and, besides
various other films, in 1966 he was protagonist in "Fueye querido",
a valuable film by Mauricio Berú.